Kaliko from Honolulu Hawaii writes ... (in response to this question : "Hello all. Some friends and I would like to have a blind wine tasting party where we pick one grape variety, similar regions (Sonoma and Napa for instance) different wineries and of course different price ranges ($10-$40) and hide the label/price. This way our opinions would could not be influenced by price tag or label. Any suggestions on making this fun and educational?")

I was going to do something similar, but have each guest bring a bottle of wine to help defray the cost of the party, since I was going to cook all the foods (appetizer portions) to match the specific wine. You don't really need food, but I wanted to make it a little special so I was going to go to town on this (roasted onions, scallops, seared ahi slices, caviar, Spanish tapas, etc).

We were going to taste and compare one winery from another with the same kind of grape, same year (e.g. 1997 Camelot Cab. vs. 1997 Kendall-Jackson Cab). Take notes on the "blind bottles" like what kind of characteristics (oak, red berries, black berries, chocolates; legs, finish, etc) and see which one got the "higher rating". We were thinking of doing cabs, jo rieslings, chards, and pinots. After we all wrote what we thought, we'd consult the books on how they'd describe the wines (leather, oak, vanilla, rose petals, honey, etc) and see if we kind of came close- but of course taste is very subjective....maybe before the tasting you can show a little video clip of how wine is actually made - I have one from Kendall Jackson "How we make wine" which is informative and pretty interesting and short enough to keep interest alive. Maybe you can borrow videos of similar topics from the library?

Use ambient lighting to bring out the best in the wine color; nice big brandy bowl type glasses, candle light, good music, each guest would get a keepsake waiter's cork screw with their name on it (use it like a placard/table setting), put small bunches of grapes frosted with a little sugar on the plates, use purple colored napkins and grape-vine napkin-rings.... This is a little extravagant, but then again I like to go all out for parties, casual or formal. :)

You can take pictures for a wine tasting scrap book and also put the soaked-off wine lables in the book. You can also add notes about that particular wine in the scrap book. Show the scrapbook to your guests next time they return and maybe they can "autograph" it for some good memories.

Bob from Missouri writes ... This is a great idea ! One of the things my wife & I do after the holidays is to have a Whine party.(NOT misspelled pun intended). We ask everyone to bring a bottle of their latest favorite asking them to express their white or red preference so we can keep equal #'s of each. We do different things like horizontal tastings of the same varietal done by different wineries : Stone Hill, Hermanhof, St. James Barrel fermented Seyvals or Adam Puchta, Hermanhof, Stone Hill St. James Vignoles are two examples from Missouri wineries. We then sample each to compare differences influenced by each vintner. The reason we call it a Whine party after the holidays is that everyone has to relate at least one whine about a gift they didn't get, got they didn't want, didn't fit, etc. You would be surprised at how many wives and/or husbands say: oh really with that gift showing up at next birthday,Etc.

Another fun thing to do is have a glass tasting: the same wine served in several different types of glasses, narrow top, wide top, smooth rim with no bead (like riedel), etc. This does require a lot of glasses but it REALLY shows how the same wine can taste different.

Just a few thoughts for everyone. I am the host of an eight winery wine tasting the weekend after Labor Day in Sept. at Eureka Days(MO.) which benefits the Eureka Arts Council of which I am a board member. If anyone is visiting Six Flags over Mid America that weekend be sure to include us in your plans. Two sites to visit are eurekaarts.org or Eureka Days.Com.

Thanks again for great site. Bob

Art & Betsy ... One of our favorite wine tasting parties is one that we call "Your wine -- Your food". It is meant to be both fun and enlightening and can be hosted for any number of people although we have found that 4 to 6 couples is a really optimum number.

We take the number of people that we are going to invite and divide them in half. One group we asked to bring their favorite red wine along with their favorite light food to go with that wine. The other group we asked to bring their favorite white wine and associated food. Basically we suggest that the food to be "heavy" hors d'oeuvres instead of a full meal.

As each person arrives with their wine and food, we take the wine,label it with the food that was brought with it, uncork it, wrap the bottle in aluminum foil and put a number on the outside. We number the red wines with even numbers and the white wines with odd numbers. The food is laid out buffet style and the wines are lined up on a separate table. Each guest is given a set of simple 3" by 5" note cards that are numbered (if there are 10 wines then there will be 10 cards for each person). Also,on a separate piece of paper, write down the wine and the food that was brought to with it. We provide 2 to 3 pitchers of water along with several dump buckets for rinsing glasses.

The "rules" are really quite simple. Ask your guests to limit their pours to about two ounces (about an inch of wine in a wine glass). Spend the evening tasting the wines and the various foods. Make notes about each wine -- basically did you like it or not and why -- and also about which wine/food pairings you enjoyed. Towards the end of the evening, simply allow time for people to read back their notes out loud. In doing so, you will probably hear some surprises about which wines were the favorites and which wine and food combinations were enjoyed the most. Once the discussion begins to wane, unwrap the bottles so that people can see what they voted on and which foods were brought for which wine.

Martin Field writes ...

Wine tasting - What was that masked wine? One of the great ways to organize a wine tasting is to play the "options game" a variation on the masked wine or brown bag theme. Invented by Australian wine guru Len Evans some 30 years ago, the options game involves presenting a series of masked wines to guests - or if there are a large number of people, to teams. The host challenges tasters to identify each wine and gives a number of options to assist the process. The winner is chosen either by eliminating contestants who answer wrongly, or by awarding points for each correct answer. Depending on the occasion a prize of a bottle of wine or two will add a touch of competition to the game.

For example, typically the three or four series of options will include, a choice of vintages: "Is this wine from '97, 95 or 93?" A country or region of origin: "Is the wine from Italy, France or Australia?" or: "Is this wine from Bordeaux, Burgundy or the Rhone?" Then a choice of varietal: "Is the wine a cabernet sauvignon, a sangiovese or a merlot?" Of course if the contest is heated the options can get down to the type of oak, the alcohol content, the vineyard, the winemaker or even the brand or label. Wines chosen for options should be typical of varietal, region and vintage; the object of the exercise is, after all, to have fun, not to trick the players.

Another variation of the masked tasting is the one used by a group of wine lovers - known affectionately as the House of Lords - who have met regularly for lunch at Jimmy Watson's Wine bar and Restaurant for the last forty years. Their main agenda item is the masked tasting of robust red wine. There are no options though - the wine can come from anywhere in the world and there are no questions or hints as to a particular wine's identity. A guest of the House of Lords asked me recently, "But isn't masked tasting a bit precious these days?"

"Well," I explained, "besides adding a touch of spice to a meal it?s the only way to arrive at an unbiased opinion on wine." He seemed unconvinced but I assured him that all judging at Australian wine shows is based upon the same principle: assessment of wine from identical unlabelled bottles. Wine show judges are told only the particular class of wines, "young dry red" for example, and are not informed of the source or maker of the wines until the awards are announced.

And many wine merchants use blind tasting of samples to choose wines for their shelves at the same assessing their worth in terms of value for money. This is achieved by assigning approximate retail prices to each wine before unmasking. Thus, the tasters might think masked wine A is worth $10 to$15, wine B $15-$20 and so on. When the bottles are unwrapped and A is seen to carry a manufacturer's recommended retail price of $6.95 and B $34.95, the merchant will obviously buy as much of A as possible and put B in the "I don't think so!" basket.

Of course masked tastings can but should never be an excuse for wine elites to show off. As a recent convert to the process however, I can state that if not taken too seriously masked tasting focuses the mind and palate wonderfully and totally removes all preconceptions based upon label recognition.

Martin is one of our resident authors.  You can read all of his great articles here.

Beth G. writes .. A really enjoyable wine evening that we have from time to time is what we call the "New World vs Old World" evening. This is where we have a dinner and the wines are of the same variety bought from different areas of the world. As an example, we provide the "Old World" wines and ask our guests to bring a "New World" version. We might supply a white from Burgundy and a red from Bordeaux and ask our guests to bring a chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon from the U.S., Chile, New Zealand, or anywhere else in the New World. We wrap each bottle in aluminum foil and place among the table.

During dinner we try to guess which came from the "new" or "old" world. This usually is a great deal of fun and candidly when we remove the aluminum foil from the bottles it usually provides a great deal of surprises. Thanks so much for having this page and the site, my husband and I really enjoy it.